In recent years, video communications and video-based services have gained increased popularity among enterprise and residential customers alike due in no small part to the widespread deployment of broadband communications networks and the numerous advancements made in the field of video compression technology. Such video-based services can include, but are not limited to, video streaming, interactive gaming, Internet protocol television (IPTV), high definition television (HDTV), and video conferencing. In a conventional video communications system, a media server can deliver video content or communications associated with a video-based service to a video receiver (e.g., a video client or server) over at least one wired and/or wireless, public and/or private network (e.g., a portion of the Internet) for viewing by a human viewer. Such video content or communications can be hosted on and/or generated by the media server and/or a third party device (e.g., a video server or client), which can send at least a portion of the video content or communications to the media server over at least one wired and/or wireless, public and/or private network (e.g., another portion of the Internet) for transmission by the media server to the video receiver.
In such a conventional video communications system, a successful transmission of video content or communications from a media server to a video receiver over a communications network generally requires sufficient bandwidth and low latency for minimal packet loss. Such a transmission of video content or communications is typically based on the real-time transport protocol (RTP), and a delivery of such video content or communications by a media server to a video receiver is typically monitored using the real-time transport control protocol (RTCP). For example, a video receiver that receives such video content or communications in the form of RTP packets from a media server can send reception quality feedback information to the media server in the form of RTCP report packets.
Video communications and video-based services can be problematic, however, particularly when transmissions of video content or communications are made over public communications networks such as the Internet. For example, when transmissions of video content or communications are made over the Internet, various video receivers may be subjected to different levels of network congestion, which can result in reduced bandwidth, increased latency, and ultimately increased packet losses, which can severely degrade the video quality of experience (QoE) of human viewers at the video receivers. Moreover, providers of such video-based services often make commitments through service level agreements (SLAs) for meeting certain levels of video QoE for their video customers. However, estimating levels of video QoE for such video customers at a media server can be challenging, particularly when taking into account the effect that public communications networks can have on a resulting video QoE at a video receiver, as well as the processing (e.g., video decoding, video encoding) that can occur within the media server itself prior to delivering the video content or communications to the video receiver.
It would therefore be desirable to have system and methods of media servers for estimating the video QoE of human viewers of video content or communications at video receivers that can avoid at least some of the problems associated with conventional video communications systems and methods.